Signifiers to stand on: on the anticipatory function of the other

In lacanian theory the process of the coming into being of the subject is considered as a continuous and anticipatory process of interaction between the organizational levels of the biological and the social. The latter comprises what Lacan called the symbolic order (“l’Autre” or the Other) that anticipates the coming into being of the subject. It is argued that this anticipatory function of the Other is at stake in Alan Bennett’s play The History Boys (2004). More specifically, by a close reading of Bennett’s text, it is shown how anticipation is implied in the three main themes of the play: 1. in the headmaster’s and Irwin’s vision on education; 2. in Irwin’s view on history; 3. in Hector’s view on the function of poetry

Pulse characteristics of passively mode-locked diode lasers

For the first time to our knowledge, asymmetric pulse shapes and the linear and nonlinear chirp from a passively mode-locked semiconductor laser are directly measured. For the laser tuned to various center wavelengths, fall-time-to-rise-time ratios of 2.0 to 2.5 are measured. With the laser tuned to the shorter-wavelength side of its tuning range, a significant quadratic chirp of -60 fs/nm^2 is measured, along with a linear chirp of -800 fs/nm. The nonlinear chirp is responsible for the asymmetrically shaped compressed pulses that produce long-tailed autocorrelations

The individual and the collective : sociological influences on Lacan's concept of the relation subject-other

In this conceptual analysis we discuss the sociological influences on Lacan's conceptualization of the relation between the subject and the other. In his writings predating World War II Lacan defines this relation in terms of identification. However, from 1953 onward he defines it in terms of the subject of speech and the Symbolic Other. It is a popular notion to characterize this change in terms of a radical breach, influenced by the reading of Lévi-Strauss. However, through a close reading of both Lacan's early writings and their Durkheimian influences we will demonstrate that what has changed, is Lacan's conceptualization of the relation between the individual and the collective. This change was gradual rather than sudden. Moreover, it can be situated within the theoretical evolution of the contiguous fields of sociology, anthropology and psychoanalysis. Thus we reject the idea of a breach within his own thought and with what came before him. We will establish our point through a summary of how the relation between the individual and the collective was theorized before Lacan. Durkheim conceptualized this relation as dual: the individual and the collective are radically separated. Mauss attempted to unify the field of anthropology through the holistic concept of the total man. In Lévi-Straus's formalization the individual becomes a function within a structured, Symbolic system. Finally, a reading of Lacan's publications concerning the notion of the logic of the collective will testify to his attempts at formulating a notion of the subject that asserts itself against this collective while at the same time retaining its nature of a logical function. This is the conundrum that Lacan will confront time and again throughout his teachings. Lévi-Strauss merely provided him with the methodological tools of structural anthropology that helped him refine the interrogations that he had already begun

RG Smart Gambling Machines: A prevention model to respond to risky play in real time

Abstract: In collaboration with industry, public health, and regulators, Focal Research developed an effective modelling process using player data and technology to identify and assist customers at-risk of having problems with their gambling. The system was originally designed using account-based player data to accurately assess play patterns. Complex algorithms scan the player data stored in an operator’s member data system, alerting operators to play behaviours typically observed among those scoring 8 or higher on the Problem Gambling Severity Index. During a live trial, the system was found to help staff interact with at-risk customers leading to measurable improvement in outcomes for ‘Players of Interest’ identified by the algorithms. The next step is to use this technology to expand player protection to customers gambling without using player identification (i.e., anonymous, or non-account gambling transactions). With industry sponsorship and co-funding through the National Research Council of Canada, Focal Research has developed a prototype model using session data to identify at-risk gambling behaviour during play and to possibly offer valuable messaging (i.e., receiving an interaction or seeing a targeted message when the player is engaged in relevant risky play practices rather than when they reach an arbitrary threshold of time or money spent). Implications: The prototype performed well, offering the potential for detecting at-risk play in real-time so targeted personal or automated intervention can occur when it is most likely to be beneficial for the customer. Focal will report on model performance for research underway with operators in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand

W3 Constructions on Affine Lie Algebras

We use an argument of Romans showing that every Virasoro construction leads to realizations of $W_3$, to construct $W_3$ realizations on arbitrary affine Lie algebras. Solutions are presented for generic values of the level as well as for specific values of the level but with arbitrary parameters. We give a detailed discussion of the \aff{su}(2)_\ell-case. Finally, we discuss possible applications of these realizations to the construction of $W$-strings.Comment: 9 page

Supermodes of high-repetition-rate passively mode-locked semiconductor lasers

We present a steady-state analysis of high-repetition-rate passively mode-locked semiconductor lasers. The analysis includes effects of amplitude-to-phase coupling in both gain and absorber sections. A many-mode eigenvalue approach is presented to obtain supermode solutions. Using a nearest-neighbor mode coupling approximation, chirp-free pulse generation and electrically chirp-controlled operation are explained for the first time. The presence of a nonzero alpha parameter is found to change the symmetry of the supermode and significantly reduce the mode-locking range over which the lowest order supermode remains the minimum gain solution. An increase in absorber strength tends to lead to downchirped pulses. The effects of individual laser parameters are considered, and agreement with recent experimental results is discussed

Learning under Distributed Weak Supervision

The availability of training data for supervision is a frequently encountered bottleneck of medical image analysis methods. While typically established by a clinical expert rater, the increase in acquired imaging data renders traditional pixel-wise segmentations less feasible. In this paper, we examine the use of a crowdsourcing platform for the distribution of super-pixel weak annotation tasks and collect such annotations from a crowd of non-expert raters. The crowd annotations are subsequently used for training a fully convolutional neural network to address the problem of fetal brain segmentation in T2-weighted MR images. Using this approach we report encouraging results compared to highly targeted, fully supervised methods and potentially address a frequent problem impeding image analysis research